


The Wreck of the Katana Fleet

by atamascolily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Gen, Ghost Stories, Katana Fleet (Star Wars), Song Lyrics, Song Parody, Superstition, Tragedy, the Dark Force (Star Wars), what spacers might sing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: A song about theKatanafleet disaster, as it might be sung in-universe.(To the tune of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot)





	The Wreck of the Katana Fleet

**Author's Note:**

> I remember reading an interesting meta on tumblr about spacer songs and superstitions in science fiction, and somehow that got me thinking about what that might look like in the Star Wars universe. Then my brain made the jump to the Katana fleet disaster, and this happened. Enjoy!

The legend lives on of the Katana fleet,  
Empty ghosts drifting on in the darkness.  
Old spacers, they say, if from the safe lanes you stray,   
You might catch a glimpse of the Dark Force.  
With two hundred ships and no need for conscripts,  
And with slave-circuit riggings to help them,  
That good fleet and crew was a bone to be chewed  
When a hive-virus struck their first voyage.

The fleet was the best, and the government's last quest  
To recapture its own former glory.  
Decked in signature gray, the Dark Force was its name,  
And the pride of the Republic Navy.  
Taking leave of the shore, the crews all came aboard  
When they left for their first and last voyage,  
But what they didn't know was a virus would grow,  
An infection that they picked up on shore leave. 

The disease in the brain made them all go insane  
Though for a few days, it only lay dormant.  
And no one was spared, no med-droids were prepared  
When the virus created their torment.  
The sick crews they conspired, and their ships they re-wired  
So that they could move fast as a unit  
What the main ship would do, all the other would, too  
Their fates linked as one in their illness.

When the captain's turn came, he of course went insane,  
Crying, "Fellas, it's time to go onwards".   
With all their ships linked, no one else stopped to think   
Or to question or defy their orders.  
The captain wired in to jump to hyperspace then,  
Though the computer did no calculations,  
And then the Dark Force all embarked on this course  
Of a journey with no destination.

Does anyone know where all hope and light go  
When you're drifting forever in darkness?   
The searchers all say, there was no hope, no way  
To pick out the Dark Force in the vastness.  
The ships are still there, floating dead out somewhere,  
Though they might have broke up in collisions,  
And all that remains is the memory and shame  
Of the ones who lost folk on the mission.

The galaxy turns, and time passes on  
In the endless expanse between systems.  
The Katana fleet's there, seek it out if you dare  
If you covet the possessions of dead men.  
Slave-rigging your ships is a fun, useful trick,  
Though you do it en masse at your peril.  
Ships still come and go, but their captains all know  
The lessons they learned from the Dark Force

The legend lives on of the Katana fleet  
Empty ghosts drifting on in the darkness   
Old spacers, they say, if from the safe lanes you stray  
You might catch a glimpse of the Dark Force.


End file.
